Hard to tell how the Early Girl tomato is doing inside its kozy coat, aside from it looking crowded. Not ill, nor growing at any great rate. Filled up the tubes so it's more column than teepee, since the plant looked so severely squashed in there. The backup tomato plant has been looking far less healthy, so hopefully this one will work out.

Still working on the melon, cucumber, and Bucks County tomato seedlings. This is the 2-week tomato seedling I almost tossed. It's been sitting outside in a kozy coat mostly (sort of quarantine), but looks like it's regaining its health, so coddling it today to see what happens. Its replacement still hasn't germinated.

Today installed 3.5-week Bucks County tomato and 3-week Japanese cucumber (seed souvenir from Japan), and 2-week Cucumber Pearl in kozy coats. (The cukes share one.) Plus 2 Sweet'n Early cantaloupe (aged 3 and 2 weeks) sharing an aqua shield. Set up pot and aqua shield for 3-week Supertasty tomato, but didn't transplant out yet - checking for leaks first.

The Bucks County tomato got accidentally run over with its kozy coat. Looks OK, hopefully it'll recover... It's a little challenging to work with a couple gallons of water in floppy tubulur form.

Because half the tubes in the first aqua shield leaked, I'm making sure both aqua shields hold water properly before committing the Supertasty tomato. It can wait a week if need be. The last guinea pigs contenders in this experiment are two peppers, that are still working on their first true leaves.

So. In an ideal world, if this works perfectly, we hope for time out early to count as at least 1/2 time toward earlier fruit. I grew the white cukes and supertasty tomato last summer.

2009-04-18: Well... the aqua shields don't leak, but their seams are getting sprung, so they turn into waterbags at the bottom. Ordered another 3... because I'm stubborn. And I'm afraid if they keep going this way, my cukes and melons won't make it, and they're cute. The red kozy koats are definitely better... The new 3 I ordered are Burpee wall o water's. Which hopefully aren't the same thing as the Burpee Aqua Shield.

All the plants look like they're growing well. The Early Girl tomato has buds already, and it's probably safe by now to pollinate them and let them fruit. If I can. There will be more frosts, but not hard freezes, I think. And even with the teepee open, a light frost shouldn't hurt it.

Added the 8-week-old twinkle eggplant to the kozy coats experiment after all, since I have extra teepees now...

This guy's the same age as the younger eggplant in my pro100, but a bigger variety (24" tall twinkle vs 12" tall bambino). Its soft furry leaves are now growing thorns down the top center leaf veins. Isn't that cunning... ow.

, Peat.

They are kitschy. I was disappointed the wall o waters weren't clear like they looked in the burpee.com photo. I think I'd get greater acceptance from my neighbors with clear & magenta. The aqua & magenta combo on a terracotta pot is rather an eyesore. We'll see how long I get away with it before people start kvetching.

I think I'm gonna switch to by-crop-type for my growlog pictures of these things.

Conclusions on the kozy coats so far: 

• Clear win for the eggplant and tomatoes. One tomato plant not doing so well, but it wasn't that healthy going in.
• Need to apply differently for cukes and melons. One plant in mid-teepee might work, 2 at the edge didn't. Besides, the teepee isn't enough to provide the kind of heat cucurbits crave.
• Peppers (2 at the edge) are probably getting a good start with the wall o water, but not as clear a win.
• They'd work better on full-sun garden soil than on part-day sun containers. A water teepee on ground can really set the soil temperature. Not so on a container. And the limited floor space on a container prevents the teepee from forming the right shape. The Growbox exacerbates this because plants are placed at the sides, not the middle. Plants don't much like being squished against a cold drippy plastic wall, and they do get very wet inside in CT spring.

On the water teepee products themselves:

• The Burpee AquaShields failed to hold water properly, on 3 out of 3. Do not buy.
• The Kozy Coat claim that the red made for a nice stocky tomato plant seems to be true. Good quality.
• The aqua (not clear as pictured on Burpee site) Wall o Waters also seem good quality, hold water properly, but the plants in them haven't done as well. But I've had the Walls less time, on more heat-craving plants, so... experiment not conclusive.

Edit:  added comparative product verdicts.

Edit:  realized later that the problem that led to my dead cucurbits was a misunderstanding on my part. The seed leaves turned shock white, and I thought it was a fungus, and it was my treatment for fungus which actually led to their deaths. But it seems the white seed leaves are simply due to cold, and so far as I can tell, the true leaves aren't harmed. So... The plants might have done fine if I'd just let them be. Conclusion above still good, though - better to keep the seedlings off the teepee walls.

I was thinking the kozy coat thing maybe wasn't worth doing, because I was harvesting my Supertasty toms by this time last year, anyway.

But I've already harvested over 40 Early Girl and kibits tomatoes. Last summer by this time I had 4 total. And this summer's been dreadful tomato weather. Cold excessive rains until July, then epidemic late blight set in before July's end. Today one person told me my tomatoes were the first ripe ones he's seen this year. Later a neighbor whose tomatoes are rightly admired, told me he envied mine. He planted eighteen this year, and already thirteen have died, and his overall harvest has been 20 fruit. Now I'm fighting the late blight, and seem to be winning, much as that battle can be won. But the basic rule of thumb for late blight is, if you can see it, it's already too late, your plants are goners.

So... without the kozy coats, I may have gotten no harvest at all.